March042010

I love how there just happens to be a strategically-placed pommel horse. It's like when you play a skateboarding video game and you think to yourself, "wow, I had no idea there were so many naturally-occurring ramps and half-pipes in the world."

March032010

March022010

Rape is cool, you guys

“I’ve never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime … Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.

To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that forcefeeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.

The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors."

Though the relative obscurity of Soup is charming

This is what I was trying to say. It wasn't a war movie. It was character exploration.

"Just saw the film. Enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was a war film at all, but a character piece set in a ‘dangerous’ place. The movie is about one person’s need for the clarifying effects of extreme danger to make them steady, to make them sane. This personality is contrasted with three others- one who approaches fear with structure, one who approaches fear with – well, fear- and a poor psychologist who is unaware of danger, and therefore has no appropriate response.

This film could have been done about mountain climbing, free diving, parachuting, swimming with great white sharks, etc. It is about personality in the face of danger, the assessment of risk, the execution of tasks, the relationship to fear. If you think it is a war movie, you missed the movie."

War movies

I hate when movie reviewers assume that if a movie's setting is a war, then it is necessarily a "war movie". Sometimes it is just a setting, and it's okay if there are inaccuracies because it's not a fucking documentary. The Hurt Locker, to me, wasn't trying to be anti-war or pro-war. I don't think it was trying to portray war in any particular way, or even at all, except as simply a backdrop or a symbol - something within which the characters could be encased. Yes, perfect adherence to the realities would be nice, but how often does that ever happen in a movie? And why does that have to happen in order for the movie to be enjoyed or taken seriously? What happened to suspending your disbelief? I'm sure it becomes increasingly difficult to do that as the subject matter becomes more familiar to you. But it is almost always necessary, to some degree, in order to enjoy a story. Fiction deserves some leeway. Non-fiction? Not so much.

But never mind. I am only defending this movie because it was directed by a woman.

“And yes, men are also sometimes victims of assault and it's a good idea for everyone be aware of one's surroundings. But that argument ignores the fact that the experiences of men and women are different in Rape Culture. A good flip-flop comparison would be to imagine a world in which women routinely kicked men in the balls really hard for no reason at all, so much so that men wore protective cups on their genitals at all times and, if they didn't, they knew full well what they were asking for. One wonders, how would men react if the ball-kicking led to the formation of Ball-Kicking Prevention Tips that advised men to never walk alone at night, to avoid dangerous neighborhoods (especially where groups of women congregated), and blamed men for Getting Their Balls Kicked if they chose to move in the world like how people got to move?”